Louisville Orchestra

Through the years, the Louisville Orchestra has performed for prestigious events, including “A Festival of the Arts” at the White House, the Inter-American Music Festival at the Kennedy Center, “Great Orchestras of the World” at Carnegie Hall and a tour of Mexico City.

In 1981, the ensemble officially augmented to full-time status. In 2001, the Louisville Orchestra received the Leonard Bernstein Award for Excellence in Educational Programming, presented annually by ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League (now known as the League of American Orchestras) to one orchestra in North America. Continuing its commitment to the music of our time, the Louisville Orchestra has earned nineteen ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. Most recently, the Orchestra was awarded large grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the National Endowment for the Arts, both for the purpose of producing, manufacturing and marketing the Orchestra’s historic First Edition Recordings collections. Three compact discs of world premiere performances dating from the 1950s have been released, with seventeen more to follow.

Chronology of the Louisville Orchestra

1818

The first official resident symphony orchestra is founded by the Society of St Cecilia.